This is an opinion piece.

When Jere Adcock stepped down after 27 years as head football coach at Decatur High School in November of 2022, he didn’t necessarily plan on coaching again.

He coached the Red Raiders from 1996 to 2022, taking the job after Steve Rivers left to be the Athens High coach. Adcock won 187 games and seven region titles and made the playoffs 21 times.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he said at Huntsville Area High School Media Day earlier this week. “I left Decatur and worked for Pepsi for probably eight months. I was calling on schools and parks and recreation departments. I was giving away stuff and making people happy. I was having a good time. But I would come home at night and my wife would say, ‘You are lost, aren’t you?’ I didn’t really know what to do.”

Then he fielded a phone call from Whitesburg Christian. The Warriors started a football program in 2020. They were looking for their third head coach following Michael Harper and Jimmy Nave.

“When I got the phone call about this opportunity, my wife told me to go look into it,” Adcock said. “She said, ‘You are not done coaching yet.’”

The rest, as they say, is history. Adcock ended his short retirement in December of 2023, leaving the ‘Pepsi Generation’ to return to his love of coaching.

“It’s been different, going from a storied program, very strong history, to a program with no facilities, no history, and just trying to get it going in that direction,” he said this week. “But I’ve enjoyed it.”

Adcock’s first Whitesburg team went 4-6 in 2024, a two-game improvement from the previous season. He is precise with his expectations for another young Warrior team this season.

“We are trying to win seven football games,” he said. “Would I want to win more than that? Absolutely. But we were 4-6 last year. They were 2-8 the year before. For us, we are shooting for seven wins. When we get there, we will be shooting for eight or nine.”

Adcock said he has a good core group of approximately 35 players, 26 of whom are in either the ninth or 10th grade. The Warriors have just four seniors on the roster.

“I think we are going to be a lot better than we were last year,” he said. “I’m excited about this group. They are young, but they work extremely hard, and we return a lot of starters.”

Whitesburg opens the season Aug. 22 at Cleveland. The Warriors lost that game 18-16 a year ago.

In just a few minutes of talking with him, it’s easy to see how much Adcock still loves the game and, especially, the players even without the number of students and the facilities he once had at Decatur.

“This has probably been more of a growing experience for me,” he said. “I’ve probably grown more and stepped back and looked at myself more with this job because there have been some very challenging times when I was like, ‘My hands are tied. What am I going to do?’ Spiritually, it’s been very challenging, which has been a good thing. It’s helped me realize what is really important.”

It is also “really important” that Adcock be involved in Alabama high school football. The experience and love he is pouring into his players at Whitesburg Christian is invaluable.

One of the absolute good guys in coaching is back, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

Coaching your kids

Adcock also talked about working for Steve Rivers when they were both at Decatur. Rivers left after Adcock had been on the staff for two years to take the Athens job where he coached his son, Philip.

“Steve said he wished he would have coached Philip the second year he coached because then he would have been a better football coach the rest of his life,” Adcock said. “He said not until you coach your own son do you really realize how to coach young people.

“You realize who they are. ‘That’s my son, those are his friends. I’ve seen them grow up.’ You just look at it a little differently because they aren’t just football players anymore. Steve was great to work for – hard-nosed, wasn’t going to break any rules. He wanted things to be physical. You better be good in the kicking game, I guarantee you. He was adamant about the punt. You weren’t going to foul that up.”

Rivers won 152 games in 21 years of coaching in Alabama at Pelham, Decatur and Athens. When Philip signed to play quarterback at N.C. State, he moved to North Carolina and coached at Wakefield High for four years before retiring to follow Philip’s NFL career.

The right man at Hoover

Grissom first-year coach Preston Judah was on Chip English’s staff when English was head coach of the Tigers. English is now the man in charge at Hoover.

Judah said he knew when English was named interim coach after Drew Gilmer’s sudden resignation last August that the Bucs had the right man for the job.

“I’ve always said what Chip is best at is organization and culture,” Judah said at Huntsville Area High School Media Day on Monday. “When they gave him that job, I told people they were going to be dang good. I knew if anyone could rally that ship, it was going to be him. He’s got a great staff around him. A lot of those guys were here when we were all at Grissom before. It shows that the process and the method works no matter where you are at. Whether it’s Hoover or Grissom as long as you institute a culture that is an effective and winning culture and you create buy-in, you can win wherever you are at.”

After winning the Class 7A, Region 3 title a year ago and making the state semifinals, English was named Hoover’s full-time head coach in December.

More Media Days

After Huntsville took its turn last week, high school media days continue to ramp up next week.

The Birmingham High School Media Days will be held Monday and Tuesday at Thompson High School. Mobile High School Media Days will be on the same days at the IHeart Radio Studios in Mobile. Those will be followed by Baldwin County Media Day at the United States Sports University in Daphne. All are closed to the public.

Other media days also are ongoing around the state.

It’s almost that time, folks!

Thought for the Week

“Faith must be found before it can be shared. Of course, it also must be shared before it can be found. This is God’s cycle of evangelism.” – Bible Studies for Life.

Ben Thomas is the high school managing producer at AL.com. He has been named one of the 50 legends of the Alabama Sports Writers Association. Follow him on twitter at @BenThomasPreps or email him at [email protected].